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Hong Kong's Secretary for Security Alistair Asprey said the accident would not halt Hong Kong's plans to continue deporting Vietnamese migrants.

Late last year, authorities halted on safety grounds the practice of aircraft taking off and landing in opposite directions, a system used late at night and in the early morning to cut down noise over Kowloon.

A replacement double-runway airport is under construction on the outlying island of Chep Lap Kok but is not expected to take the first flights until late 1997, after the handover of the British colony to China.